How close will the election result be?

The last opinion poll I saw had Labor at 52 and the Coalition at 48, both figures in the two-party-preferred style. There have been three opinion poll results since the Budget, two of which have a 2 per cent gain or thereabouts for the Coalition, the other a gain to Labor. Given that the conventional error margin in such polling is around 3 per cent, those outcomes would be within the error margin. Conventional’ means just that — it is a convention, not greatly to be relied upon. Oh, having watched Clive Palmer’s expensive television campaign for the new United Australia Party, I was interested to see that the Roy Morgan poll gave it 1.5 per cent. That could be meaningful were most of the votes to come from Queensland. The Greens are at 13.5 per cent, while One Nation is at 4 per cent. About ten per cent want to vote for Independents and ‘micro’ parties.

Some opinion poll results can be way out of line, and when that happens ‘adjustments’ are made so that the outcome looks more sensible. Sounds a bit like temperature measurements? Indeed, there is a real similarity. But this essay is about the coming election, and while there will be some to-ing and fro-ing about who has the best climate-change policy, the gravamen of the short official election campaign — that is, from the time the Governor-General declares the date until the day itself, about a month or a little more — will be about education, health, budgets, tax cuts, border controls, immigration, population policy, energy and which party and which leader the electorate as a whole feels safer with.

I did a lot of work fifty years ago in trying to establish just how important an apparently divisive great issue, in this case ‘Vietnam’, was in the electoral shift from 1967 to 1969. Vietnam was indeed a powerful divider in those years, with Moratorium marches, peaceful and less peaceful protests, lots of Parliamentary talk, kilometres of newsprint and a great deal of television and radio. Yet after a close analysis of changes in attitude and changes in voting intention (1967) and vote (1969) it became clear that movements went in both directions. Voters certainly went to Labor, but some who had been Labor intenders moved to the Coalition. Why? Because their attitudes to the war in Vietnam had hardened. Labor had a net gain only: it lost supporters as well as gaining rather more.

Not only that, the Vietnam issue, though far and away the most newsworthy, was seen by only 8 per cent of the sample as really important to them. What was much more important to the electorate were economic issues, and which party would deal with them more effectively. Then came social welfare matters, like pensions and health, and then education. Sound familiar? I think there are strong similarities. In 1969 there was a biggish swing to Labor, but the Coalition survived because it had enjoyed a triumphant victory in 1966, and had a substantial buffer in seats. Today the Coalition has no buffer at all, and I expect Labor to win unless something extraordinary happens in the next five weeks. Mr Scott Morrison is well ahead of Mr Shorten as preferred Prime Minister, but the view of the leaders didn’t mean all that much in 1969, and I don’t think will mean much more fifty years later in May (18thor 25that the time of writing). The leader poll results (and Mr Shorten has hardly ever been ahead) give colour to those who think the Government knows what it is doing, and the Prime Minister must know everything the Government knows.

States and Territories make up eight smaller domains, and the 52-48 ‘Australian’ outcome is their average. It’s once again a bit like global temperature, which means nothing much to anyone who is not fixated on whether or not the planet is warming. In Canberra I am much more interested in our local weather and its fluctuations. So I am similarly interested in what the likely election result will be in our three House seats and two Senate seats. My guess, for what it is worth (a nursing home is not the best place to learn other people’s voting intentions!) is three Labor MPs and one each of the Senate seats to Labor and the Liberals. On the whole, the polling organisations don’t have large enough samples to justify releasing State and Territory results, though NSW and Victoria probably would qualify.

There has been a good deal of ‘You did it too!’ in the campaign so far. Labor has been complaining over the past few months about what it sees as excessive spending of taxpayers’ money on advertising what ‘the Australian Government’ has been doing to make us all richer, better able to employ new staff, and the rest. The Coalition’s response is simply to say, first, that the spending has been within the rules, and second, that Labor spent half a billion the same way when it was last in office. What the rules are I am not quite sure, and neither side has gone into it. Having worked as part of ‘the Australian Government’ in the past, I didn’t actually see these ads as party political, which astonished some of my former civil servant friends. But I just didn’t. Bored with them, absolutely, but as partisan sallies, no. Maybe I am more innocent than I like to think.

Andrew Leigh, a friend but not my local MP, has posted the following on his website newsletter: ‘Over the past six years, the Liberals have installed a revolving door in the Prime Minister’s suite. Meanwhile, Labor has had just one leader, one shadow treasurer, one shadow health minister, one shadow attorney-general, one shadow climate change minister, and one shadow immigration minister. For that matter, I’ve been our shadow assistant treasurer throughout that time: responsible for revenue, competition and charities.’ Well, Andrew conveniently forgot that from 2007 to 2016 there was a revolving door in the Labor Government’s Prime Ministerial suite — Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, then after 2013, Shorten. My general sense is that there was about the same amount of knifing on both sides, that both have been guilty of much the same amount of poor behaviour, and that each has contributed in much the same amount to a widespread sense within the electorate that parliamentarians are too much interested in themselves, and not enough in our national problems.

And that brings me to a sort of summary. My guess is that as the election gets closer there will be a smallish movement back to the Government we actually have, on the ground of ‘Better the devil we know…’ That is commonly the case when there are no great issues at stake, which I think is the case at the moment. The Budget has returned to the black, no doubt with some more ‘adjustments’ to make that happen, the economy is in decent shape if not exactly flourishing, and each side is promising goodies to almost everyone. Why would you choose one side over the other, if you were not already rusted on to one or other of them? One reason is that you might be bored with the group in power. Another might be that while you don’t find Mr Shorten especially attractive, he has at least been plugging the same line for the past six years, while his less sensible colleagues, and he has his fair share of them, have kept quiet for the most part, at least as far as television and radio news goes.

Two age-old dicta from the political past. First, ‘Vote early, vote often!’ and second, ‘Whoever you vote for a politician always gets in. Vote Informal!’ I don’t in fact endorse either of them.

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Don, the apparently divisive issue in this election was Turnbull. I would never have voted for him, though I would normally, but not invariably, support the Liberals. His first interview on ABC cemented his status as a smug man assuming his rightful status as Prime Minister. I doubt he’ll be judged kindly by history, but that won’t worry him. He’ll have been an Australian Prime Minister, which is all that matters..

Don I hope for a Coalition win, but I’ll be very surprised if this is the May result. Last night Alan Jones AGAIN pointed out the abysmal ignorance of Shorten and Plibersek ( leader & deputy) when questioned about two important numbers from their recent nonsense about EVs and dangerous level of co2 in the atmosphere.
Clueless Shorten wants to spend an extra 474 bn $ ( for ZERO change) on their CAGW fra-d, but thought (??) that we could charge an EV in about 10 minutes and Plibersek couldn’t answer Jones when he asked her for the atmosphere’s co2 level. Unbelievable but true.
These clueless fools have been yapping about their CAGW fra-d for years but can’t answer the above SIMPLE questions correctly. I’ve known about co2 levels for at least 30 years and I well understand about charging an EV using trickle or even a fast charging facility and 10 minutes is still delusional for every day situations.
The Nissan Leaf retails for about 50,000 $ in OZ and a similar small SUV can be purchased for about half that price. The Leaf is the most popular EV in the USA, Of course a top end Tesla EV is more than double that price, so that’s not going to change EV numbers any time soon.
At the moment EV sales per year in OZ are about 0.2% of the market and yet Labor expects people to line up by 2030 and increase those sales to 50% of cars sold?
But Shorten also wants to increase taxes by 200 bn $ and will probably waste a lot of it on more S&W subsidies and the above EV fra-d and con. ZIP dividend return, plus no change to climate and temp , but who cares?
And yet these stupid fools are ahead in the polls?

BTW Bill McKibben’s 350.org is getting involved in our Fed election and even the seat of Mallee has a meeting of about 5 candidates to discuss their dangerous CAGW delusions.
Their idea is to return co2 to 1990 levels, but they ignore the fact that the developing world couldn’t care less. Anyway who cares about real data and evidence?

Here is the 350.org OZ site. In short they want to close down all fossil fuels and they want 100% renewable energy ASAP. What could go wrong????

So how many trillions of $ would this cost the OZ economy by 2030 or 2050 or 2100? We’d certainly be back to third world standard of living, while all non OECD countries would be much wealthier , healthier and have much longer life expectancy. Just look at China today to understand this very rapid change.

Thanks Don for another interesting thoughtful essay. Just because Shorten is less popular does not mean he will not win. Abbott won the 2013 in a landslide despite being an unpopular opposition leader. I am near sure Bill will win but hope Scott (despite wrecking my superannuation strategy) will. I was surprised at the 13.5% for the idiotic greens (yes I did vote for them in the past when I got jack of Labor).

This is evidence of the brainwash factor coming out of our education system as recent school children reach 18. Thank God the 16-year voting age proposal was squashed. Any party who advocates $billions into renewables is crazy, any grid engineer will say 12% is the absolute limit. This has been confirmed by the recent AEMO report and a State wide blackout together with many local/regional blackouts.

Of course the ridiculous renewal advocates never mention the amount of coal needed to make hundreds of tonnes of concrete, 100 metre of massive steel tubing and the resin to make the blades to produce one 2 or 3 megawatt wind turbine which is at best a little over 30% efficient, intermediate and probably will not pay back its CO2 manufacturing debt. Transport, erecting and hundred of Km of wire to connect to the grid adds to the CO2 debt. On top of all that they industrialise and clutter our unique Australian landscape. If anyone is serious about reducing CO2 then modern late generation nuclear is the solution, the only solution.

But as we know it not about the CO2. CO2 is a very weak IR absorbing gas (in fact “one of the feeblest…”, as John Tyndall explained at chapter 14 in his lecture “On Radiation” on Tuesday 16 May 1865, water vapour being by far the strongest IR absorber (chapter 13) and its atmospheric concentration is some 10X -20X that of CO2 and, correctly pointed out its major role in warming Earth. But, hey what would he know, after all he is only the discoverer, merely a 19th century scientist who is pale male and stale.

No, CO2 is merely one of the vehicles for a PC centralised socialist control, and ultimately the rebirth of communism.

Yes the global warming scam, & all it’s spin off crony capitalism schemes is a serious problem, we need windmills & electric cars like a hole in the head, but for me the worst is immigration, refugees, & boat people.

If shorten gets in, we will get a flood of even more excessive migration, but my real fear is a renewed flood of boat people.

The top end of boat people organisation are simply waiting for the chance to get the money rolling in again. There is no doubt that Shorten & Labor would be unable to stop the boats as Abbott did so easily. Their hard left faction would desert them immediately. We will be back to the ratbag left globalisation crowd tail wagging the dog of Australia yet again.

Much as I am not impressed with the current LNP bunch, [Subs, Snowy, reef etc. waste not stopped], I an horrified at the thought of how much damage Labor could do to my grandkids future in even just one term.

Oh goodness, it is terrible, isn’t it. Lots of assertions that are plainly wrong. The internal memo is just about the only thing that looks real. The presenter is awful. But thanks for providing the link. I hadn’t realised just how bad some of this alarmist stuff can be.

And the logarithmic nature of the relationship between the doubling CO2 and temperature increases is not known there.

To my knowledge – an accurate “logarithmic” relationship has not been specified. All we have is an expected response based on a doubling of CO2, but all logarithmic functions can represent a doubling, and a doubling of CO2 can still cause linear warming.

CO2 does not cause all the observed global warming – there are complex feedbcks that seem to have established a linear trend at least in the satellite era.

I think we should focus on the actural trends emerging from modern global data over 30 years.

The author makes the pointat fig 3 that, for the time period we are concerned about the curve, it is close to a straight line.

“After zooming in, the logarithm doesn’t make such a big difference: it’s not far from a straight line. 560ppm will probably take us well beyond the Paris target of 1.5°C, so the 280-560 range is key; we would be unwise to let our civilization go beyond 560.”

So I do not think this word, being bandied about so often, has any useful relevance.

If you think that my comments are causing me embarrassment, as you have suggested many times, I can only assume either that you are yourself readily embarrassed, and are projecting your own reactions on me, or you have no substantive response.

I have never suggested that CO2 increase is linear, you are causing yourself embarrassment by suggesting that the only choices are linear or exponential.

I see that you have finally recognised that denile is a river in Egypt. Or did you mean to use your favourite word, “denialism”?

CO2 increase isn’t exponential because there’s only so much fossil fuel in the Earth’s crust. That is a limiting factor. Peak oil can’t be far away since people have been predicting it since the seventies. CO2’s IR absorption is logarithmic because of physical chemistry.

Thus CO2 is harmless, since at a 2XCO2 under 1 K/doubling its effect upon global temperature is small and logarithmicly self limiting.

The author makes the pointat fig 3 that, for the time period we are concerned about the curve, it is close to a straight line.

“After zooming in, the logarithm doesn’t make such a big difference: it’s not far from a straight line. 560ppm will probably take us well beyond the Paris target of 1.5°C, so the 280-560 range is key; we would be unwise to let our civilization go beyond 560.”

So I do not think this word, being bandied about so often, has any useful relevance.

There are four conic sections, the parabola, the hyperbola, the ellipse, and the circle, which is a special case of the ellipse. There is a reason there are different names, because they generally present differently.

Special cases (circle and ellipse are an easy example) might present as the same, but if parabolas and hyperbolas were always identical, there would be only one name.

Mike Jonas shows that the southern ocean around Antarctic is much colder than the models predicted and yet this science (???) journal still refuses to publish the study.
What a pity this couldn’t be highlighted during the coming Fed election, but most media would do their best to bury this ASAP. Even the journal editor agrees but still prefers the modeling to the evidence. Some science and some journal SARC and more trillions $ to be wasted on their so called CAGW in the decades ahead.

Nev,
Can you help me? In trying to check out the story you refer to I can find no mention of the scientific credentials of Mike Jonas at the Wattsup site etc. Also he does not show up on Google Scholar. If he has not published and is not part of a scientific organisation, it might explain why his paper was rejected. Note that I do not regard Whatsup as a scientific source, but do accept properly accredited sources it quotes. Just like this site we babble on, the info is only as good as the source.

An example of a function that is not exponentail is a sine curve or a tangent curve. Another example is a catenary curve.

You can also see the trivial case of a linear line being psuedo-exponential if you accept the fact that, in this case, the exponent is 1.

I will leave it to you to ponder what happens when the exponent is 0 or even non-integer.

You can also have exponents that are themselves trigometrical or (more commonly) logarithmic.

An exponent can be any number – real, non-real (ie imaginary), or even a variable, including a logarithmic function.

If you have any formula for an elipse, circle, or hyperbola that does not have exponents, why not supply it????

Note: elipses, circles, and hyperbolas are exponential “curves.” They are not of the form A^x, where “x” is the variable and the exponent and A is a constant. These are exponential “functions”. This is a technical point.

A circle, elipse is an exponential “curve” not necessarily an exponential “function” strictly speaking.

The point that every single curve was exponential was in the context of the curves cited by Boambee John.

You stripped it out of its context. This amounts to a falsification.

It is not true that every single curve otherwise is exponential, and I gave several examples to demonstrate this.

What you call nonsense is in fact well established mathematics properly understood by honest scientists and now easily accessible on this world wide web.

The fact that we have two trends countering each other explains why we have a pseudo-linear trend and why our future will not be saved by the misunderstandings of those who think they can use the word logarithmic as a form of denialist dogma.

Another top story about those silly EVs . Just a pity it also won’t be highlighted during the election.
It seems that the residents of a very wealthy street can blow up the grid when 4 or 6 Tesla EVs are plugged in at the same time.
But a Faraday exchanger seems to be able to balance things out,yet the installation cost across OZ would be very high and one guess who’ll pay for this has to be fairly obvious.
Far better to build brand new, efficient HELE power plants to give us reliable , baseload power for the next century. Coal or gas who cares, so long as we have cheap reliable baseload power. And forget about subsidising clueless, expensive EVs.

I find it curious that you seem to conflate EV’s and coal power. Yes EV’s use electricity to recharge, but it does not matter to them what the fuel source was for that power. In fact in national terms a shift from petroleum fuels (mostly imported at great cost) to electricity (produced by local fuel supplies of coal, gas or renewable) would be a great benefit to our balance of trade and is not really part of the coal debate at all.

Your standard line is typical of the anti change brigade turning “let us look at reducing emissions by more use if renewables” into “they want us to DESTROY OUR WHOLE ECONOMY AND WAY OF LIFE”.

As written before, were we around a hundred plus years ago you would be screaming to keep the horses running and stop the terrible waste caused by ICE powered vehicles. Or more recently arguing that mobile phones will never take off because it would require 10,000 towers at great cost and still not provide service everywhere.

I think your comment was directed at Neville. But the only reason I would press the point about coal and EVs is that EVs form part of the ‘climate change’ policy that Labor is espousing. Plainly that is ridiculous.

Stu I admit it may sound confusing , but as you know I don’t like BS and fra-dulent energy like S&W because it is very expensive when you piggy back it on to coal or gas baseload energy.
I also don’t like EVs because they are far too expensive and have a limited range. They take far too long to charge and they also require a lot of upgrades to the grid to allow that charging to take place.
Of course none of this will change the temp or climate by 2100 and beyond, so the whole thing is a very expensive waste of money and time. Dr Hansen calls it a fairy tale. Think about the size of emerging country’s soaring emissions now and into the future.
Here again is OZ 2015 TOTAL energy from the IEA, showing 93.3% from fossil fuels and just 1.5% from GEO+ S&Wind. Why would anyone want to destabilise our grid just to add more unreliable, intermittent S&Wind energy? And at what cost, just to make things worse? IOW show me the benefits of EVs and an expensive changeover to Dr Hansen’s BS and fra-dulent S&W fairy tale?

Neville,
You are misquoting again or at least being disingenuous with how you use a quote. “Dr Hansen calls it a fairy tale.”
You will find Hansen is criticising the woefully inadequate plan from Paris and is distraught that not enough is being done. He does not say it cannot be done.

Dr Hansen said a belief in S&W is like believing in the Easter bunny and the Tooth fairy. And in the Guardian interview he said that Paris COP 21 was just BS and fra-d.
Look it up and prove me wrong and he now thinks that Nuclear energy must be used to provide reliable baseload power.

Don, I think that there are many, many more voters who can smell a dudd rather than identify them through a rigorous analysis of whatever policies. That is why I think that the Coalition will retain government.

Neville,
Once again you are half quoting. Yes Hansen sees nuclear as necessary in the total solution, (meaning north america, europe and china), but he does not dismiss S&W either. More to the point, which you ignore, he says we have to increase the price of carbon by taxing it out of existence. How does that fit with your love of coal for electricity and petroleum for transport?

As for your earlier posts about the poor performance of wind, I suggest you check out the latest 10Gw turbines in Europe that are achieving radical price/performance gains.

Gosh Stu I didn’t say the bloke was sensible all the time, just sometimes. S&W are completely unreliable because they are not baseload and sooner or later they will fail.
Anyway Hansen should go and lecture China etc about fossil fuels and don’t forget China now generates 66.7% of TOTAL energy from coal and Hansen’s USA just 17.1%. IOW chalk and cheese. You and Hansen should wake up and understand the IEA data.

Always no reference, far away and nebulous. Always jam tomorrow, so let’s mandate electricity prices reducing every year. If companies say no profit the local government will pay them SAV and take over.

Don,
My understanding, partly from a friend who is working on the installations, is that the days of subsidy are gone over there. Keep in mind that in europe a lot of the coal is imported, so expensive. One of the reasons it lives on here is that the power stations are sitting on top of it so it is relatively cheap and not burdened by any charges like a carbon tax, yet. On the other hand we are blessed with vast spaces for solar and wind.

The big new wind turbines have enormous swept areas and are achieving high efficiency. An experimental one under construction has blades 100 metres long. Nothing that big planned here. The fifth and latest ACCIONA install in Victoria will only use 4.5Mw turbines and will take the company’s capacity to 592Mw.

In the case of solar a great example of unsubsidised power here is in South Australia where a firm uses solar power to desal sea water and grow tomatoes. Examples like that and the current development of large scale wind and solar farms puts to bed the claim they cannot compete. One of their advantages is very low operating cost once commissioned.

Note that because we have been slow to make the shift all this technology is being imported, an opportunity lost once again.

SD,
“But as Europe is finding out, you can’t run a high pressure industrialised civilisation like that and the fact is that where you have the most wind and solar, power is the most expensive.
You are in complete denial of taxpayer funded subsidies for this stuff and when you cut the subsidies the true cost emerges.”

Please back up both those statements with facts. I think you will have trouble. You are always quick with the bull shit lines from the fossil funded denier brigade. Europe, particularly Britain is now very reliant on renewables. Show me the subsidies, and by the way deny the subsidies conventional power receives in the USA and here.

And BTW, I am still convinced you are a very clever automated bot troll provided by the fuel industry, some of your stuff is so whacky. Convince me otherwise by all means.

SD, you delusional old git, read this. “Utilities are accelerating their retirement of coal plants because they are increasingly uneconomical. According to cost estimates from investment bank Lazard, the lower-end of the average price for coal-fired power is now almost $20 higher per megawatt hour than that for a natural gas. The lower-end of the average prices per megawatt hour for wind and utility-scale solar are even more competitive with coal, even without subsidies, at $29 and $36 respectively.

As of 2018, 70 percent of coal capacity in the U.S. had a higher running cost than renewables, and by 2030, that number is expected to reach 100 percent.”

That is from climatenexus.org. Show me how it is not true. Who is paying you? Or is it just that you live and breathe skynews and Alan Jones.?

Yes mate, you stick with your trusty Novas, Ridleys and Constables as sources, very predictable. Did you know Ridley has a coal mine on his property, which may influence his opinions? Have you noticed the circular pattern of quotes in those articles, but rarely a pointer to the actual data. They quote themselves, round and round.

Meantime here is a real source, the actual organisation itself, not made up numbers.

Never mind, you poor old thing it will all work out in the end whether you like it or not. Just like the election here. As usual the outcome will be decided by a handful of swinging voters in a handful of seats in the end. They are the ones this whole campaign is aimed at. The rest is window dressing, so dont get too stressed unless you are a swinger.

Stu see my post below for the real IEA data and compare USA to Germany or the UK. Much lower energy costs in the USA. See IEA link for USA and coal just 17.1% of TOTAL energy.
What don’t you understand about the IEA data?

SD I think you’re wasting your time with Stu and you’re right that Germany is the best example to use to understand the failure of renewables.
Solar is obviously a stupid choice for them and wind is as unreliable in Germany as it is around the world. In recent years they’ve returned to brown coal to boost their energy needs after messing with S&W for decades and wasting tens of billions $ and all for a zero return.

They’ve wasted tens of billions $ down the drain and achieved nothing. Fossil fuels still generate about 78.7% of TOTAL energy and GEO + S&W just 3.5%. If you add BIO + waste to FFs you have a very high 88.3% of their TOTAL energy.

Of course their percentage of coal at 25.5% is much higher than USA at just 17.1% ( 1.5 TIMES HIGHER) of total ENERGY. All of the above are IEA 2015 TOTAL energy

Of course Germany is supposed to be the poster child for renewable energy, but is truly a disaster leading to very high energy costs for their people and business. The US by comparison have much lower costs for energy, for both business and consumers. Here is IEA data 2015 AGAIN for German TOTAL energy. What a fra-d and con.

Yes of course, Neville, but you would think he might eventually become aware of the horrendously costly blunders these countries he loves to quote as examples, have made in the last 20 years by trying to follow these Ponzi schemes he is so enamoured of.

So I labour on, foolishly trying to save the soul, bacon and sanity of those who would stampede us all up this blind alley.

Labor wants to sell about 520,000 EVs PER YEAR by 2030 or about 50% of today’s annual car sales. Does anyone seriously believe that EV sales will suddenly increase by an average 47,000+ vehicles over the next 11 years?
At the moment they are a very expensive option compared to an average sized SUV, so people would have to be barking mad to change. Unless the subsidy paid by the Labor donkeys totals 20,000 plus $ per car ( at least) and even then EVs would be a poor choice. And ZERO change to temp or climate by 2100 and beyond. Yet many gullible fools swallow this fra-dulent nonsense and if we believe the polls they will vote for Labor or the Greens on May 18th.

Stephen H Schneider, born in New York, trained as a plasma physicist, embraced scholarship in the field of climate science almost 40 years ago and continued his relentless efforts creating new knowledge in the field and informing policymakers and the public at large on the growing problem of climate change and solutions for dealing with it.

When there was a cooling consensus Schneider wrote in 1976:

“There is little food stored to cushion the shock of the kinds of weather problems that so suddenly and unexpectedly damaged crops in 1972, 1974 and 1975, and there is growing evidence that such damaging weather may occur more frequently in the next decade than in the last one.”

But when the world realised that the cooling was just a 40 year climate cycle he began preaching warming and commented about spreading his very effective message:

“Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”

SD here’s a young Stephen Schneider in “the coming ice age in 1977”. Just amazing that this is the climate that the alarmists now dream about.
He died from cancer a few years ago and looked very puffy and ill on an SBS program in OZ just before his death. But of course by then he’d done the 180 degree switcheroo and he was very much for promoting CAGW at that time.
See him at about 8 mins 30 secs at link.

Neville, please get your facts right especially when referring to the dead. The poor man died from a pulmonary embolism on his way back to US from a conference in Europe. If the term PE is too confusing for you, try deep vein thrombosis, and be careful next time you take a long flight.

Yes, stu, it’s telling us exactly what I have been trying to drum into you for ages. That any warming is predominantly in areas that will give us great benefit and as per the graphs displayed that not much has changed this century.

It also blithers on about wildfires and pollination as per standard alarmism to gain grants, stay in favour with all the rest of the consensual alarmists and keep their jobs.

Try being a bit sceptically analytical instead of a religious true believer.

SD,
That is certainly not the conclusion I came to from watching. Here are some words regarding the study that don’t say everything will be fine elsewhere.

The new paper — titled “Key Indicators of Arctic Climate Change: 1971–2017” — is the work of scientists at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland in Copenhagen (GUES).

“The Arctic system is trending away from its 20th century state and into an unprecedented state, with implications not only within but beyond the Arctic,” said Jason Box of the GUES, lead author of the study. “Because the Arctic atmosphere is warming faster than the rest of the world, weather patterns across Europe, North America, and Asia are becoming more persistent, leading to extreme weather conditions. Another example is the disruption of the ocean circulation that can further destabilize climate: for example, cooling across northwestern Europe and strengthening of storms.”

SD, “What you do, stu, is look at the graphs, the pictures and the current ice levels and then think for yourself.”. Surely you are not serious. I looked at those graphs and charts. Anybody looking at them would come to the same conclusion, except you. You really are off in cuckoo land, watching with more than rose coloured glasses, more total distortion glasses. Anybody else reading, (Don, anybody) go and look at the numbers. This man has lost the plot, but he will fit perfectly in the world of Trump and Abbott. Bring on the election (back to the thread eh).

Tony Abbott states the obvious and has the usual media con merchant response. The so called science is NOT settled and Greenland temps and ice , lack of SP warming since 1978, no hot spot, SLR no different than the previous century, polar bear population booming , massive drop in deaths from extreme weather events since 1920, average life expectancy much higher today and increasing, people are also wealthier /healthier than even 50 years ago,
SLs much higher around the world just 4,000 years ago, the UHIE etc, all throw doubts on their so called settled science.
Of course they also adjust UP recent temp data and adjust early temp data DOWN to further muddy the waters and throw more suspect man made warming into their mix.

Stu, Stephen Schneider did suffer from an aggressive cancer before he died, but certainly DVT was the cause of death.
He certainly didn’t look well during the SBS program just before his death at age 65.
But DVT can occasionally be a problem for much younger people during air travel. I know of two people who had problems, but both survived the ordeal.

Yes SD and the MacDonald et al 2000 study found that in the early Holocene boreal forests grew up to the present Arctic coastline. Today it is just tundra and ice, just more proof that today’s so called warming is really quite cool.

That area was about 2.5 to 7 C warmer than the same area today. The warming over the last 40+ years is probably mostly natural and we may see even further cooling when the AMO changes to cool phase.

Most of that much warmer climate had started to change to cooler conditions by 3000 to 4000 years ago. So much for their CAGW. Here’s the abstract and link.

Today’s warming has a different cause because the Earth’s orbit has not varied much over the last 200 years.

So we are experiencing Holocene warmth when Holocene conditions do not exist.

We appear to be in a slight cooling phase associated to Milankovitch Cycles, but this is being swamped by GHG warming which will increase into the future at around half a degree every 50 years – for ever.

Increased co2 is certainly benefiting the bio- sphere all around the world. Co2 indeed is the elixir of life. And at least 50% of Qld is showing the max increase. (purple) Plus other areas in OZ, USA and other areas right across the globe.

The BBC did a book, and probably also a TV show, in the 1970s called The Weather Machine and the Threat of Ice. All about the new ice age that was almost upon us. Their recommended solution was to induce global warming, as a warmer, albeit partially flooded, world would be a better place to live than a frozen one.

It was on the BBC, so it must be true. I wonder is either still available?

Yep, 50 odd years ago they still thought that maybe the cycles caused by orbital changes (that you guys love to quote) might lead to cooling. Having not seen it I will not comment on the veracity or even relevance of the arguments. Meantime you guys argue that the climate 250 generations ago was relevant to today as a backstop, with no mention of length of time or pace of change. Pardon the french but, FFS, get real. You still operate in this crazy space where 2 degrees is ho hum. Have a look at what the scientists (not your looney commentators) are saying about the current changes in the Arctic.

But I forgot you have your own special set of ice data that shows that everything is wonderful. Silly me.

Gosh so i’m supposed to be impressed with a lot of theory about what might happen in another 100,000 or so years?
But I’ve already shown that the Greenland ice sheet today is higher than at any time over the last 7,000 years and the
Antarctic hasn’t warmed for the last 40 years according to UAH V 6.
And Vinther et al ( last 12,000 years) also shows the cooler Greenland temps today for at least the last 7,000 years. Then we have the other Vinther et al that covered the last 200 year instrumental Greenland temp data set that showed the last decade of that study compared well with earlier 20 th century decades and a number of decades in the 19th century.
This is real data that so far doesn’t stack up well for their CAGW theory at all.
Then we have the problem of the RS & NAS question 20 that then leads to the mitigation deaf ear of the developing countries like China, India etc.
If we can’t convince these countries of this so called urgency we should have a bex and a lie down. Don’t forget that’s where 90% of extra co2 emissions are now generated.
SLR today is about the same as has been for the past 100+ years, so just more data that also doesn’t support their CAGW theory.

Anyone who claims to be concerned about CAGW and is not ACTIVELY campaigning for widespread use of nuclear power, particularly in the developing nations where the big increases in CO2 emissions are occurring, is not serious.

Stating, as Stu has, that nuclear power is not politically acceptable in Australia is a cop out. Believe in CAGW, then campaign to change those attitudes. Properly presented, the benefits of nuclear power compared to renewabaubles in reducing CO2 emissions while providing reliable power are incontrovertible.

BJ, Stu and Chris don’t know what they believe and how to think using proper logic and reason. I’ve asked them repeatedly to tell us how to fix their so called CAGW and they seem to chop and change from one day or week to the next.
Hansen and others now think that nuclear is the answer, but other silly lefties believe in their S&W fantasy and the idiocy coming from the likes of the AOC fool. S&W are clearly not the answer and Germany provides us with the clearest evidence that taking that course is an expensive disaster.
Anyone who really thinks we’re heading down the catastrophic AGW road should be protesting in China, India and the developing countries because that’s where most of the increased co2 emissions are now generated.
Clearly OZ should be building new best HELE coal plants to replace aging coal fired stns to provide us with cheap, reliable baseload energy for the future and unreliable S&W should be thrown into the dust bin of history.

Do you believe that solar, wind and batteries, together with the relatively limited hydro power available, can in their present state provide reliable, continuous power adequate to run the Australian economy and at least maintain current living standards?

If not, when do you expect them to be able to do so?

What technological developments are necessary to achieve this?

If the situation is as serious as you claim it to be, do you accept that nuclear power must be part of the mix?

Remember this little gem from the lefties climate dreams handbook?
Don’t forget this was professionally done by big budget film makers and even actor Gillian Anderson gets the red button in the last scene.
I know lefty totalitarians love blood and guts everywhere but who would believe that even they would go this far? Just shows the sort of vicious morons we’re up against. Remember—NO PRESSURE.
But please don’t show this to kids.

“GHG warming which will increase into the future at around half a degree every 50 years – for ever.”

Let’s put aside any argument about whether this is occurring, and can continue “forever”.

Given that the increases in CO2 emissions from developing nations, particularly China and India far exceed total Australian emissions, what impact will any action taken here have on this inevitable doom you have forecast?

BJ,
You asked “Do you believe that solar, wind and batteries, together with the relatively limited hydro power available, can in their present state provide reliable, continuous power adequate to run the Australian economy and at least maintain current living standards?”

Answer, of course not. No one says they can, do they. But people do argue that we should trend towards that goal rather than just sit on our hands.

“If not, when do you expect them to be able to do so?”

Answer, I don’t know, I am not an expert, are you? Long answer, there are signs that we could get there in twenty or thirty years. It is hard to predict technology and its rate of uptake. Snowy 2 will not be quick, but there are hundreds of smaller scale sites that could be relatively.

“What technological developments are necessary to achieve this?”

Answer: Breakthroughs in battery technology of which there are plenty of promising leads in the labs now. Continued improvement in wind technology, though it is hard to imaging blades much bigger than 100 metres. Finally, perhaps some of the touted breakthroughs in solar technology, particularly in terms of efficiency and cost of production.

“If the situation is as serious as you claim it to be, do you accept that nuclear power must be part of the mix?”

Answer. Yes, personally I think the nuclear option makes sense, but at least in this country we seem to have the major parties locked in to the idea that it is a no go area. Just look at the bull shit surrounding a solution for long term storage of low and mid level nuclear waste. Again, perhaps some breakthrough in technology might help (Thorium). And the current experimental development reactor in USA is not going well with cost and time over runs. Makes you wonder why the kind of reactors they have been sticking in subs and aircraft carriers for years could not be easily deployed for civilian power generation. The big players in emissions, USA, Russia and China will keep on with nuclear as will France and a few smaller players. We should also.

SD,
Do you occasionally feel sad, being so negative all the time. You really are the complete pessimist. And talking about “wilderness destroying” have a look at the ugly black scars all around the Hunter valley and the filthy ash dumps by the power stations. Ah, yes, “clean coal”. And I suppose they once said that about all the horse shit on the roads, but we moved on.

We have had this discussion before. The Greens have an inordinate influence on politics in Australia, in large part because they frequently hold the Senate balance of power. Their policy is to end coal use in Australia and its export by 2030. In terms of solving the power generation problem, that is very near term, much less than your twenty to thirty years, and their solution is essentially closing their eyes and wishing really, really hard. Regrettably, they might be able to force us at least part way along this path.

You are correct that the nuclear option makes sense, but going back to my 0751 post, if you are as concerned as you say you are, why are you not campaigning publicly for this option? (I concede that you might be, as I do not know your actual identity, but if you are, the campaign is essentially invisible.)

Surely this is a known, existing path to take, while waiting for the Godot of improved solar, wind and battery technology is very much the Micawber option? What if nothing turns up? We need a Plan B.

BJ,
You said “You are correct that the nuclear option makes sense, but going back to my 0751 post, if you are as concerned as you say you are, why are you not campaigning publicly for this option? (I concede that you might be, as I do not know your actual identity, but if you are, the campaign is essentially invisible.)”

Actually that whole question (nuclear option) is so long term, to sway political policy, public acceptance, and then to actually build one, that I think the other technological developments will overtake the argument.

Just like the original electrification of Victoria, once there is serious motivation (and money) things can change quite rapidly. And as another example consider that it took just 66 years to go from mans first flight to landing on the moon. SD saying the technologies of wind, solar, batteries and solar will never develop to cover it is just denying the past as much as the future.

And by the way I am flattered that you think I could possibly influence public policy. Sadly not so.

While I do not share your concern about buclear power, it might shock you to read that I agree strongly with you on population policy.

I am old enough to remember when environmentalists pushed organisations like Zero Population Growth, Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population and Australians Against Further Immigration. Yet the modern Greens are full bore for an unsustainable level of immigration, and will brook no opposition to the current ridiculously high levels.

” SD saying the technologies of wind, solar, batteries and solar will never develop to cover it is just denying the past as much as the future.”

The technology might well develop in the longer term (you suggested some decades), but in the near term we need an option to keep the lights on. Drop a couple of major coal powered generators in the next five or ten years and that might not be possible.

“SD saying the technologies of wind, solar, batteries and solar will never develop to cover it is just denying the past as much as the future.”

Stu, I spent the early part of my life living with wind and battery energy as did a generation before me and I know the huge amounts of money we were more than happy to pay govts to bring power lines to distant stations because of the limits of this energy.

60 years later the development of that era wind power has fundamentally not advanced. In fact it was possibly more efficient then as the 3 bladed turbines blades in those days rotated about their leading edges to always spin at a constant rate regardless of wind speed so that they generated power over much greater wind ranges.

Modern ones I have checked don’t seem to do that. They seem to just close down.

I also sailed many oceans using solar power 40-50 years ago and in both cases these “renewables” only supplied a small part of energy requirements and always need a diesel generator back up.

That situation has not changed today so rather than “denying the past as much as the future” it is simply demonstrating that any breakthrough you may be anticipating is clearly not forthcoming and to continue to squander our trillions for another similar period into the future [while not making the slightest dent in ACO2] is the height of stupidity.

If we spent a fraction of that money down other pathways such as fission and fusion we would see some serious problem-solving breakthroughs.

And are you seriously saying that when it comes to nuclear support, numbers don’t count?

The immediate effect will be an increased demand for more electricity generation. Can this demand conceivably be met by renewabuables?

What is the “carbon budget” for EVs with their batteries, added to additional renewables, noting the hundreds of tonnes of concrete needed for wind generator foundations, plus the steel for the columns, plus the materials for the turbines?

The last time a deep solar minimum was in effect was the Maunder minimum, which saw seven decades of freezing weather, began in 1645 and lasted through to 1715, and happened when sunspots were exceedingly rare.

…

NASA explains on its website: “All weather on Earth, from the surface of the planet out into space, begins with the Sun.

“Space weather and terrestrial weather (the weather we feel at the surface) are influenced by the small changes the Sun undergoes during its solar cycle.”

The space agency adds on its Thermosphere Climate Index (TCI) “a weather metric that tells us how the top of Earth’s atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) is responding to solar activity” that “the top of Earth’s atmosphere is approximately 10 times cooler than it was during the record-setting Solar Max of 1957-58”.

Here’s another fact+ data filled article from Lomborg and this Bangladesh reference shows a cost benefit analysis of 500 to 1. But this will be lost on the climate loons and they’ll continue to believe in the pixie dust science of the S&W idiocy.

The World bank’s policies have been and will continue to be a disaster, costing 100s of billions $ for zero change by 2100 and beyond.And we can be sure that the developing countries who carry out a proper cost/benefit analysis of the science will continue to ignore these ruinous policies, while OECD countries do their level best to unravel the science and technologies that brought us our prosperity in the first place.

Here’s the Bangladesh ref.

“Similarly, a Copenhagen Consensus study looked at the effects of building coal-fired power plants in Bangladesh. The study estimated that these plants would cause global climate damage worth $0.6 billion over the next 15 years. That’s not trivial. But by increasing the energy available for industrial development, the project would generate total benefits of $258 billion – about 500 times greater than the damages. As a result, the average Bangladeshi would be 16% richer by 2030. The project could afford to offset emissions and still be hugely effective”.

BJ I’ve found the link and it is this month.
BTW wouldn’t it be great if OZ voters could watch this very short factual video about the earth and changes to temp and co2 levels over time? That quote about the Arctic warming disaster is an oldie but a goody.
I’m sure our cult members would be smacking their chops in expectation until he mentions the date of the article is 1922.

“Morrison claims that Australia is reducing per capita emissions. This is all we can reasonably expect provided it is linked with suitable a population policy.”

I hate to be unduly cynical, but I suspect that the per capita reductions to a degree come from increasing the numbers of capitas. Reduce population growth, as you seem to suggest, could reverse the trend.

It was Morrison’s dirty trick to play the per capita card when emissions are rising – but still – with proper population management and some verified carbon capture, then per capita reduction solves the problem at minimal cost and we can take 30 years or so to do it.

Considering the tone of some of your earlier comments, such as “We appear to be in a slight cooling phase associated to Milankovitch Cycles, but this is being swamped by GHG warming which will increase into the future at around half a degree every 50 years – for ever.” this seems quite a modest response.

SD,
You said “60 years later the development of that era wind power has fundamentally not advanced.”

Surely you are not seriously equating the S&W technology of sixty years ago with today. Chalk and cheese my friend. But then again maybe the key is in your words about old style three blade generators . You are comparing the fiddly things on farms in those days with the noisy contraptions on boats today, aren’t you? Whereas the rest of us are talking about the enormous contraptions hundreds of metres high that are being constructed today. These new ones produce over 10Mw over a wide range of conditions. You are comparing mice and elephants.

The same is true for solar and storage. I have been using solar in a marine application for decades and to compare then and now is ridiculous , in terms of price, weight, flexibility and performance etc. Time you went and bought some new ones.

“Whereas the rest of us are talking about the enormous contraptions hundreds of metres high that are being constructed today. ”

That would be the ones that chew up and spit out large numbers of wedge tail eagles, other birds, and miscellaneous bats, would they? The ones that cause low level infra-sound with potentially adverse health effects? The ones mounted on foundations containing hundreds of tonnes of concrete, a material which the Grauniad recently condemned as ecologically dangerous? Those turbines?

Let’s not pretend that wind and solar are environmentally benign, they have their costs also, not least of which are the vast areas required for a wind farm, and the high voltage transmission lines needed to join them to the grid.

Stu, scale has nothing to do with technology. The basic technology is the same as it was 60 years ago and the three blade mincers today, like their solar thermal counterparts, are, as BJ points out, much less environmentally friendly.

The US were building wind farms that stretched to the horizon at least 50, possibly 60 years ago and when I was in California in 1984 during the Olympics, many were in ruins even then.

Huge turbines were built on Diamond head etc to take advantage of Hawaii’s fabulous trade winds as it was thought they would be the energy answer long before AGW raised its head but they were junked at least 30 years ago.

I recently tried to get more efficient solar panels than my old marine ones which I used for ocean racing so they had to be high efficiency/small area and wind resistance [those marine wind generators are a no-no for racing] and there was so little improvement in actual measured performance that it wasn’t worth the cost and the trouble.

But if you really want to evaluate modern renewable power systems just go to off-grid Windorah and check their solar thermal plant which has a negative cost/benefit.

Not only do they use the same amount of diesel fuel as they did before they spent $100,000 per household on this monstrosity but it needs a team of expensive people to operate it and keep it maintained.

The mindless trillions that are being planned for squandering on these dysfunctionals show that in no uncertain terms the inmates are still fully in charge of the asylum.

I give up, it is truly impossible to engage in dialog with a true luddite. But just to keep score I have archived everything written here so far and will keep checking for the actual outcomes. So far it is all going against all your predictions even allowing for your doozy sources. Anyhow I will be travelling and off air for some time so will leave all you true believers in peace. There are bigger fish to chase and where the debate is more realistic. And getting back to the original topic of this thread I will miss the rest of the election campaign, which could well be a blessing. Finally take a look at watts his name, not the main page, go directly to the sea ice one. Seems all is not well in the Arctic.
Cheers

Here are judge Vasta’s findings in the Peter Ridd case. This is easily the biggest win for Sceptics since 1988. Certainly the mitigation fra-d should be much easier to prove. Just use the RS & NAS question 20 Q&A and then allow the alarmist scientists to prove my point.

303. In light of the above, I make the following rulings:
a) The first finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
b) The censure given to Professor Ridd was unlawful as it contravened cl.14 of the EA.
c) The First Speech Direction was unlawful in that it sought to interfere with the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
d) The Second Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
e) The First Confidentiality Direction was unlawful because the University had no power to give that direction, and even if it did have the power, such a direction was in contravention of the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
f) The Third Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant cl.14.
g) The Second Confidentiality Direction was unlawful because the University had no power to make such a direction, and even if it
Ridd v James Cook University [2019] FCCA 997 Reasons for Judgment: Page 74
did have the power, such a direction was in contravention of the rights conferred on Professor Ridd by virtue of cl.14.
h) The Fourth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights of Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
i) The Fifth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights of Professor Ridd given to him by cl.14.
j) The Sixth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights of Professor Ridd given to him by cl.14.
k) The Seven Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
l) The Eighth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
m) The Third Confidentiality Direction was unlawful because the University had no power to make such a direction, and even if it did, such a direction contravened the rights of Professor Ridd pursuant to cl.14.
n) The Second Speech Direction was unlawful in that it sought to interfere with the rights Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
o) The Fourth Confidentiality Directions was unlawful because the University had no power to make such a direction, and even if it did, such a direction contravened the rights of Professor Ridd pursuant to cl.14.
p) The no satire direction was unlawful in that it sought to interfere with the rights Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
q) The Fifth Confidentiality Direction was unlawful because the University had no power to make such a direction, and even if it did, such a direction contravened the rights of Professor Ridd pursuant to cl.14.
r) The Second Censure was unlawful because it contravened cl.14 of the EA.
Ridd v James Cook University [2019] FCCA 997 Reasons for Judgment: Page 75
s) The Ninth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it related to the breach of a direction which was of itself unlawful.
t) The Tenth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it related to the breach of a direction which was of itself unlawful.
u) The Eleventh Finding made by the University was unlawful because it related to the breach of a direction which was of itself unlawful.
v) The Twelfth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
w) The Thirteenth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights the Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
x) The Fourteenth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it related to the breach of a direction which was of itself unlawful.
y) The Fifteenth Finding made by the University was unlawful because of breached the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
z) The Sixteenth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it breached the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
aa) The Seventeenth Finding made by the University was unlawful because it had no substance whatsoever, and even if there were the slightest scintilla of evidence, it was contrary to the rights that Professor Ridd had pursuant to cl.14.
bb) The termination of Professor Ridd’s employment was unlawful because it punished Professor Ridd for conduct that was protected by cl.14 of the EA.
304. I invite the parties to make submissions as to the issue of declarations and penalty. I will adjourn the further hearing of the matter to a date to be fixed.
Ridd v James Cook University [2019] FCCA 997 Reasons for Judgment: Page 76
I certify that the preceding three hundred and four (304) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of Judge

“At its core, intellectual freedom mandates that academics should express their opinions openly and honestly, while inviting scrutiny and debate about those ideas. Unless opinions are expressed in this way, the growth and expression of ideas will be stifled and new realms of thinking will cease to be explored.”

It’s amazing how the “pursuers of truth” at the centres of our highest learning are quite happy these days to shut this down.